8 New Marketing Insights We Learned From Our Latest Meeting with Facebook in 2017

November 2, 2017

Recently, we attended a marketing event hosted by Facebook that was geared towards platform builders, such as Social Report. During the course of the day-long event, members of the Facebook team covered a variety of topics with a key focus on the future of Facebook's marketing platform, its key principles and its significant focus on video ads.

Freshly equipped with new insights from this event, we wanted to share with you some of the interesting infographics and facts that Facebook was nice enough to share with us.

Below you will find 8 new marketing insights we learned from our latest meeting with Facebook in 2017:

1. More Businesses Than Ever Are Using Facebook and People Aren't Afraid to Connect with Them

Fundamentally, Facebook is an enormous ecosystem with more then 70 million businesses actively using their network, more than 70% of Facebook users connecting with those businesses and 5 million businesses choosing to advertise with the network.

2. Facebook's Ecosystem Is Huge

With Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp being part of the extended family, Facebook's total users now amount to nearly 4.5 billion people!

3. Advertising with Facebook Is Optimized for Different Outcomes

When a business runs ads on Facebook they are offered three types of campaign objectives. The terminology is a bit trivial, so we'll provide some examples:

Depending on what you pick, Facebook will run your ad differently + the ads have unique costs factors:

Awareness ads have lower cost for impressions.

Consideration ads have lower cost for video views.

Conversion ads have lower cost for conversions.

4. Facebook Uses an Interesting Formula to Prioritize Ads for Its Users

Facebook also has an interesting take on how ads are prioritized for any user. It uses a two-factor system:

How relevant the ad is to the user?

How good of a deal the placement has for the business? (They want to give you the best possible cost)

What this means is that Facebook algorithms will ensure that you spend the least possible amount and your ads will be shown to the best possible audience.

5. It Seems Facebook Believes That Video Ads Are the Way of the Future

Facebook allows businesses to setup all kinds of ads but it does seem that their key belief is that video ads are the way of the future. The world is changing to where people are using multiple devices and consuming increasing amount of video content.

6. Video Content Creation Is Exploding

Why should businesses seriously consider video ads? Simply put, video content creation is exploding. There are two billion smart phones in the world, three times more video shared in 2017 then in 2016 (and we are only in October) and four times more videos produced per day in 2017 then in 2016.

7. What's Also Changing Is the Way in Which People Consume Video Content

Ten years ago, it was all about TV and movie theaters. Today we can watch videos on mobile, on the go, connected TV, VR, lean-back and in several other channels. Each type of video consumption offers a multitude of possible formats and advertising options.

The video itself is changing as well. Facebook now offers 360 degree videos! Did you know that over 1M+ such videos have already been uploaded?!

8. Facebook Wants Your Video Content to be Successful

Facebook also has some recommendations on what kind of videos (e.g. length, format) would be best for each type of marketing objective we discussed previously.

As you can see shorter videos (which are obviously cheaper to produce) are geared more towards reach objectives and appeal to audiences with a shorter attention span. Longer videos are geared towards more complex messages. As a general recommendation from Facebook, whatever video you produce, the key "punch" should be delivered in the first 2-5 seconds.

Our Conclusion

In conclusion, we just wanted to thank Facebook for a lot of insightful ideas, a totally free buffet (if you've never visited Menlo Park, you should!), and an amazing atmosphere of wanting to build something that enables the world to communicate in ways we have not communicated before!

To any business owner reading this, we just want to say that building out a Facebook marketing strategy is extremely important, particularly around video content. While video content can be more expensive to produce, it can lead to tremendous exposure and results for your business.